


A Little Like Forgiveness

by Cherith



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Canonical torture, F/M, PTSD, Rite of Annulment, Sacrifice, star-crossed lovers, the bastardization of lovely poems and the Chant of Light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/pseuds/Cherith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They met at the worst time in his life.  She has seen him at his worst, pining for a mage he cannot be with, tortured and troubled by a demon (the memory of which continues to haunt him long after his rescuers are gone).  The end of the Blight is supposed to be a happy day, but it becomes the newest worst day of his life as he watches the sky split in two by a bright light and the death of an Archdemon.  With that one death, comes many others.  Leliana is a comfort, a woman who understand his own convictions and responsibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She Walks in Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to my beta, [guerrin](http://guerrin.tumblr.com) for trying to whip my story into shape, and to my artist, [eyeofmantorok](http://eyeofmantorok.tumblr.com) ([ Art 1](http://eyeofmantorok.tumblr.com/post/43373272903) & [Art 2](http://eyeofmantorok.tumblr.com/post/43373721879)). I've been wanting to write this story, or some version of it, for a really, really long time now. I don't know that I succeeded in making it what I wanted to make it, but I'm really glad to have spent the time exploring these two characters as I did, and I hope you enjoy what came of it.

 

**When We Two Parted**

 When we two parted  
In silence and tears,  
Half broken-hearted  
To sever for years,  
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,  
Colder thy kiss;  
Truly that hour foretold  
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning  
Sunk chill on my brow---  
It felt like the warning  
Of what I feel now.  
Thy vows are all broken,  
And light is thy fame:  
I hear thy name spoken,  
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,  
A knell to mine ear;  
A shudder comes o'er me---  
Why wert thou so dear?  
They know not I knew thee,  
Who knew thee too well:---  
Long, long shall I rue thee,  
Too deeply to tell.

  
In secret we met---  
In silence I grieve,  
That thy heart could forget,  
Thy spirit deceive.  
If I should meet thee  
After long years,  
How should I greet thee?---  
With silence and tears.

**_~George Gordon, Lord Byron~_ **

  
**She Walks in Beauty**  
  
He met her at the worst time in his life.

***

  
Every part of him ached.  He was cold despite his armor; his body shook when he held still too long, and he hadn’t slept but for minutes at a time.  No vigil had ever been like this one.  Never had he so feared to close his eyes- fear of what was waiting on the other side.  Keeping his eyes open was also not an event of safety.  There was no safety here.  Not when abominations roamed the halls and a demon lurked in every moment, ready to torment him.  
  
When help did arrive, there was little fight in him.  It was still enough to fight against the hope that Neria and her companions brought with them.    
  
The young Templar had been tricked too many times before their arrival.  The demon had dashed each of his hopes with the sights and sounds of every dead Templar; every mage that it killed or turned, and with each time it came to him wearing Neria’s face.  It seemed to gain pleasure from that trick the most.  It would come to him and offer a rescue, a better life, the chance to relive a few missed opportunities.  He could be grateful at least that he was used to the misery of knowing he could never be with her.    
  
Not that it stopped the demon from trying.    
  
When she had left the Circle to become a Grey Warden, it had left a crack in his heart the shape and space of an elven name, the taste of the forest and magic fresh on his tongue.  She had kissed him only once: the night she prepared to leave her home in the tower for the world beyond; and though it had been months from then to now, the demon had kept the memory fresh in his mind and on his lips.    
  
Too many times already had he come close to giving in.  A life away from mages and the tower, a quiet life with a quiet farm and a wife like Neria.  It was too perfect.  The colder he felt the longer he fought, and prayed.  The knots in his stomach grew from hunger and thirst.  In those moments he knew he was growing closer to letting the demon help him forget it all.  
  
He did not recognize the people with her, save Wynne, one of the Circle’s Enchanters, but it mattered not when he saw Neria.    
  
This trick was not new.  
  
“Cullen,” she whispered.   _Or-- whispered the demon behind her eyes._    
  
He knelt at the bottom of the last set of stairs before the tower where Uldred held Senior Enchanter Irving.  No one had come or gone from the tower in so long it was the best he could do to imagine they were all dead.  It would be his task to bear the weight of the remaining demon; if that was all he was good for now, he accepted it.  Kneeling and praying was his best weapon against the demon.  He spared a brief glance to Neria, long enough to see how harshly she, and those with her, glared at him.  Then Cullen put his hands over his eyes, letting the cool sting of metal hide them all from view.  The words of the chant were better remembered than any others.   Each line flowed from him like exhaled breaths.  Sometimes it kept the demon at bay; sometimes he let the moments collapse upon them until he fell asleep, still murmuring the words.    
  
“Cullen, please.  Just look at me,” Neria said.  
  
Her voice was soft now, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. Her words, no matter how sweet or how convincing, would eventually turn bitter and evil.  
  
He broke his recitation to snap. “I will not be tempted by you.”     
  
“I’m not trying to...”  
  
“Stop!  I won’t listen to your lies!”  His voice was already hoarse from shouting and praying. He refused to take the food or water offered to him.  There was nothing to prove any of it would be safe for his consumption; he would rather die of thirst than at the hands of a demon.  
  
She pleaded, “Cullen.  Listen to me.”    
  
He could not cover both his eyes and ears both, so he ducked his head, bending forward as far as his armor would allow and squeezed his eyes closed tight.  Then he moved his hands to his ears as fast as he could, pressing the metal down until his ears ached and he could feel his fingers meet behind his head.  
  
Quietly he whispered, “Why must it be her?  I have a foolish heart, to be tempted by her: a mage of all things.”  Tears stung his eyes, and he kept them closed and tried to will the demon away.  “Please.  Go.”  
  
When she spoke again, Neria’s voice was muffled, but his armor did not stop the sound completely.  “Cullen!  It’s really me.”  She pleaded with him, “I need to know what happened.  I need to know what _is happening_.”  Her voice wavered and if he thought his heart could have taken anymore, it might have broken.  
  
It could not.    
  
Despite his attempts to ignore her, she persevered.  The next time she spoke her voice sounded closer, but her words were thick, as though they nearly choked her on the way out.  “Cullen.  I’m going to go up those stairs and I need you to tell me what you know before I do.”   
  
A memory swarmed him, replacing the dark behind his hands: _a late night, a bowl of lyrium, Irving and Greagoir stand watch over a nervous woman taken from her bed late at night.  She was due her time in the Fade.  A test._  
 _A Harrowing._  
  
Cullen’s eyes would not close any tighter, and he shook his head to rid him of the memory.  It would not go.  
  
“Cullen.  Please.  What has happened to you?”    
  
 _He watched as she touched the lyrium.  Her head lolled to the side and a moment later she was falling to the ground.  The fall would not harm her, but if she did not survive the Fade, or if she brought a demon back with her, it would be his sword that struck her down.  The Harrowing was supposed to be for mages: their rite of passage.  But it was his too; he felt just as harrowed by his responsibility not for her life, but for her death._  
  
 _Her head lay against the stone floor, and there was a whisper on her lips._  
  
There was an echo of it now, _“I’m afraid.”_  
  
 _As the light in her eyes that so often made him smile started to fade, he turned his gaze away._  
  
“Will you help me?”    
  
Cullen waited as he’d waited that night: with a breath caught in his chest and his eyes closed.  And then there was the prayer in his mind and on his lips, that if the Maker listened at all, he fervently wanted that it would be in that moment he would grant Cullen --no, _Neria-_ \- his favor.  He wasn’t so sure anymore that the Maker was the one listening.    
  
Yes, she had survived.  They had been harrowed and that long night had turned to day with both of them safe and sound within the tower walls.  He’d had more than his share of long nights in the tower since she had gone.  And while prayers had been on his lips nearly each moment of every day, he was the one on his knees at the mercy of an abomination, suffering under the ministrations of a demon.  He was no heathen, but whatever strength Neria had, was more than the Maker had given him.  
  
There was a woolen feeling on his tongue, his breath too thick, and throat dry.  He forced himself to swallow and then slowly --ever so slowly-- he lifted his head and let his eyes open.  
  
Neria was there but hazy through the glow of the Fade barrier the demon used to keep him in place.  She kneeled on the stones in front of him, just inches away and, like so many times before, his hands desperately wanted to reach out for her.  She wore the grey and blue of the Wardens, as did the man behind her.  There was a sad smile that spoke of dreams unfulfilled.  Of doomed wishes.  Of things never to be.    
  
His time with the demon had accustomed him to a wide variety of her smiles, from penitent to seductive.  But this one was only sad.  Concerned.  It was the sort of smile she had previously only reserved for the tranquil mages of the Tower, for escaped and recaptured friends, and for things better forgotten -- like the number of years she’d lived in the tower.    
  
The demon had been many things while it wore Neria’s face.  It had feigned sadness, it had pouted and pleaded.  But he couldn’t think for a moment of a real moment, a moment where he’d felt as though she was concerned for him or for the tower and those left upstairs. In front of him, Neria’s face was a changing mix of emotion, sadness, worry, and fight.  She wanted to fight.  
  
He blinked and tried to remember if she had yet to appear to him as a Warden.  Everything felt like a blur of time, moments collapsing in on each other, and he could not place any time since Uldred had taken over the tower before or after another, at least not with any consistency or accuracy.  What Cullen knew for certain was that the discovery and escape of a blood mage had preceded Neria’s recruitment and departure with a Grey Warden.  And perhaps that had been the true beginning of his nightmare.  Uldred’s betrayal had come swiftly after, but he remembered nothing more than the death of his men and the loss by death or abomination of the mages he’d sworn to protect.    
  
He had never expected Neria Surana to return to the tower nor for her to return as the confident and battle-hardened warrior before him.  She was more than a mage now.  More than the memory he had held so close.    
  
He stared at her and searched every part of her face, looking for the cracks in her skin where he might find a demon waiting.  She didn’t speak, and her only movements were the furrowing of her dark brow as she studied him in return.  There was sadness in her, mourning, and she was still waiting for him.  The demon did not appear.   
  
It-- _She_ was no demon.  
  
He swallowed down the lump of fear in his throat.  The best he could manage was little more than a hoarse whisper.  “Neria?”  
  
She let out a heavy sigh, and he watched as relief spread over her features.  She nodded.  “It’s me,” she said.  Her words were soft and didn’t carry farther than the space between them.  
  
Cullen could feel relief for the tower was not cleansed, but he allowed himself a moment to feel as he was: broken and exhausted.  It was so hard to believe it was really her.  He wanted it to be true so badly and, because he wanted it so much, he could not be certain.  He could not touch her, could not follow her, and there was so little faith left in him to just... believe.  
  
There was a gasp from behind Neria, a red-headed woman in the robes of a Chantry Sister; her face was drawn in shadows.  “Neria, I have water and food, if he needs it.”  
  
Neria waved a hand at the woman.   
  
The demon had offered him food before, but not like this.    
  
He hated not knowing.  Just as he hated the way he hated what Uldred had done to their home.  Cullen knew many of the mages were unhappy at Kinloch; he could understand a part of their frustration-- it was his home too.  He had chosen this life, to serve the Maker, giving himself to the Chantry so that he might both protect people and mages both from magic.   _Magic existed to serve man._  
  
Neria looked away, focusing her gaze on the stairs, and Cullen had to remember what waited in the tower.  Anger bubbled up in his chest.  He was overwhelmed, tired, and broken.  He contracted his features and pressed a hand to his face instead of letting out a frustrated groan.   There was little he could do, trapped as he was.  Guilt laid on him heavily, and the anger constricted motions as he tried to keep himself contained.    
  
His templars were gone, and Neria stood between him and the door to the harrowing chamber, the door that would lead her to the entire tower’s destruction.  
  
“Neria,” he said through the thick breath he exhaled.  “Don’t go up there.”  His knees shook as he stood, and his hands balled into fists at his sides.  Through clenched teeth he added, “The tower must be cleansed.  Talk to the Knight Commander.”  
  
“Cullen!”  The bite of his name on the Senior Enchanter’s tongue had him jumping to look behind Neria at the older woman.  “We will do no such thing,” she added.  “We will retrieve Irving and set this place right again.”  
  
Neria waved a hand to keep the Enchanter from continuing. “I did, Cullen.  The Knight Commander was the one to let us in, but we cannot leave without the First Enchanter.  He will keep us locked in here until Irving calls through the doors to open them.  We’ve been through the rest of the tower.  All that’s left is what’s up there.”  Her eyes narrowed, and she gave a sharp nod towards the stairs.  “I have to go up. I have to stop Uldred.  I have to end this.  And I have to do it before the Knight Commander’s request for annulment is approved.”  Her gaze fell back to him, focusing on the prison that surrounded him.  Briefly her hand hovered just on the other side of that faded glow, and he felt a brief calm-- the hope that she could break through it.  
  
Only they both knew she couldn’t.   
  
She turned her hand up and offered up a distressed smile and a pain-filled sigh.  His sigh was far more quiet but no less painful and a heartful more lonely.  It wasn’t that he had never had faith in her before.  Everyone had talked for a long time before her Harrowing about what an impressive mage she would be some day: quick on her feet and powerful, too.  And it wasn’t that he’d lost his faith in her either.    
  
His faith just didn’t equal the damage that had been done, the mages and templars he’d seen fall, which was a good deal more than had survived.  He wanted to ask her how many remained.  How many of the templars still stood watch, how many of her own kind she’d had to put down on her search for the First Enchanter.  He didn’t ask.  
  
Cullen suspected the answer would only serve to fuel his anger.  
  
When he looked at her, he realized that if anyone understood his frustration, Neria must.  She’d lost a friend in that Harrowing chamber two years before.  Her other friend escaped the keep and was branded a blood mage the very day she was conscripted by the Grey Warden.  She’d been fooled by him, made to believe that she was helping him, only to find of his treachery after his phylactery had been destroyed.  She knew the dangers.    
  
And yet she wanted to go up the stairs to fight Uldred, to place herself in the path of a blood mage, of the mages corrupted by him, and who knew what else. Cullen didn’t know what to think of her.  Other than he was certain the worse evidence either of them had faced regarding the dangers of magic waiting for her and her friends at the top of those stairs..  He couldn’t fathom what it would mean if she breached the door.  So many lives had been lost to Uldred. He didn’t want to lose her, too.  
  
She couldn’t rescue him, nor he her, and it seemed like she’d been gone for so long, even though the demon had shown her face to him so often.  Neria was there --actually there-- to try to rescue him and the tower, and he was too angry to feel gracious or even embarrassed.    
  
Standing up, he felt some measure of control of himself, even as the phantom sensations of the demon’s presence pressed against his skin as though they might crawl out of him.  Perhaps it was not gone at all. If it was Neria, the horrors of the demon had somehow made seeing her feel worse, poisonous.  It hurt more.  Ached more.  His body twitched and shook, and he couldn’t control himself enough to keep his anger in check.  Whatever she was or wasn’t to him, and whatever her station in life was, he felt protective of her.  Protective and very, very frightened.  
  
And as with everything, came the anger.  If she went through those doors, he could do nothing to keep her safe.  Uldred could turn her.  Uldred could use her against him, against the tower, against herself.    
  
“Don’t go.  Uldred cannot be reasoned with.  He cannot be trusted.”   _You cannot be trusted._  
  
With that same sad smile, she shook her head and stepped away from his prison.  Through its glow, he watched as she looked at each of her companions, looking --he assumed-- for guidance.  She and Senior Enchanter Wynne exchanged glances for the longest time, silent and contemplative.  The older woman took a deep breath. Cullen ticked away the seconds in his head before she or Neria said something, fearing that he already knew what was coming.  
  
Expected or not, it still felt like a knife blade had struck him between the shoulders when Neria turned her pale, determined expression back to him. She was composed, her blue eyes narrowed, and he knew that there was no chance he would dissuade her from the tower.    
  
“I’m sorry, Cullen.”    
  
Those words hurt nearly enough as the look had, and with them his stomach twisted.    
  
He hung his head.  
  
There was a clatter of weapons and armor, and the clacking of staves on stone as they all moved past him to climb the stairs.  They stopped briefly, and he heard a whispered exchange of before they ascended.  He closed his eyes until he heard the door start to creak open.  It was old and heavy, and he had enough chance to turn his eyes up and give Neria one last pleading look before they were gone: maybe forever.    
  
Neria and the man at her side wore the blue and grey of the Wardens, and they did not look down at him but locked in a conversation he could not hear.  Wynne looked as she always did in her Enchanter’s robes and gave him a stern look he had seen more than a few times in his tenure at as a Templar.  And finally the Chantry Sister wearing an expression almost as pained as Neria’s had been earlier when she looked down at him.  Even in the dim light the red in her hair shone as though lit from beneath by the brightness of her Chantry robes.  In one hand she hefted a bow, and he saw a quiver half-full of arrows slung across her back.  She was like no lay sister he had seen before.    
  
The woman smiled at him, but it was sad and pitying, and after a moment she too turned and followed Neria and the others up the rest of the stairs to the Harrowing chamber.  The door thundered shut behind them.  
  
All Cullen had left to do was pray.

***

  
All time before Neria’s --the real flesh-and-blood Neria-- arrival had seemed an eternity. He could remember nothing about which day or what time the attack had happened in relation to what day or time it might have been when she arrived.  The stone walls around him did nothing to help. There was no light the the demon did not provide, and he could believe nothing she provided.  Yet, after Neria’s departure for the tower, time seemed measurable but painstakingly slow.  It was as though someone had given him a beach full of sand and each grain was a second he had to count.  
  
He counted those seconds in the echoes of his heartbeat and thought that maybe just the knowledge of Neria in the tower made the waiting harder.  He felt the sting of shame at the thought that not only could she fight when he could not, but she could fight t _he things_ he could not.    
  
He drove away his regret with the Chant of Light in a whispered tongue.  
  
For a while, all was quiet.  Cullen prayed. There was little else to be done in his reprieve (however brief) from the demon that had dogged him so mercilessly.  He prayed for Neria, for Uldred to be stopped, but mostly he prayed for the fallen templars throughout the tower.  He did not like to think of how few of them would be left.  At least Greagoir was free. Knight Commander Greagoir had sent for the Rite of Annulment according to Neria. Even if he wouldn’t survive to see it happen, Cullen knew it was the right thing to do.  Too much had been lost in this tower: good men and women, devout templars. Their deaths were owed recompense and the Annulment would not bring them back, but it would make sure nothing like this happened here again.  
  
Slowly, as though his prayers were barrier against the recognition, Cullen started to hear noise from above.  The walls and stone were thick, but when he perked up to the sound he could make out a variety of battle sounds.  Most of it was too muffled for him to make out, but he could watch dust fall from the ceiling in time with loud thumps and imagine how the battle moved across the floor.  When the silence came between the noises he stared at the stone and prayed.  With each sound and silence, Cullen struggled not to assume the worst.  
  
Finally a long silence fell, and Cullen was sure that it was all over.  He felt heavy, sore, and defeated, and he took the emptiness around him as confirmation that Uldred had succeeded.  It was a sign that he and anyone else left in the tower were doomed.  Before long he knew the demon, _his_ demon, would come back.    
  
Or would the demon abandon him?  Would he be alone again without Neria, and without even the promise of her face?  
  
The weight of those thoughts pushed him to the floor.   
  
Just as his forehead touched stone, his room went dark and the prison around him disappeared.  
  
Cullen’s heart seized.  There was an oppressive weight to the darkness, and he could only close his eyes for the hope of escaping it.  Weariness had flooded him before, but what he felt now sunk into his very bones.  Tears, the first he’d shed since his imprisonment, welled in his eyes and then dropped into his armored hands as he cradled his head.    
  
It was over.

***

  
Cullen opened his eyes to a ceiling made of stone, but he did not recognize it.  Or he did, but it was not the same stone that he knew by heart-- the stone he’d counted and memorized, the stone he could have described down to each worn groove where one joined against the next.  He moved slowly; his entire body felt like it was tethered to the ground, and he tested each limb on its own to find them free of restraint, just sore and slow.  When he turned his head to the side a woman, a mage, was at his side.   
  
There was a sliver of light emanating from her hands and she smiled and reached out to him.  Cullen jerked, spikes of pain in his arms and legs not allowing him to go far, but far enough to make the mage think twice about touching him.  Frowning, she moved away from him.  He saw her address the Knight Commander, but his eyelids were heavy and his body ached and, as long as no other mages attempted to touch him, he was content to lay down and let the pain subside.  
  
However now that he had woken and had encountered a mage further sleep proved elusive.    
  
Behind closed eyes the shadowed face of the demon waited, and the sound of the chant from the far corners of the hall-turned-infirmary turned to whispered seductions.  Even the healing magics of the nearby healers made his skin crawl.  Each spell felt like a creeping itch or the slow trickle of cold water down his arms.  He laid, tense and unmoving, for hours; he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t forget.  
  
He didn’t know how long he laid there or how long he’d slept, but finally he willed himself up.  The weight of effort to sit up on his cot was heavy, like the first time he’d ever been strapped into a full set of armor.  His chest heaved with the strain but he sat up and leaned forward, hands on his thighs.  After a few deep breaths he was calm enough to look around.    
  
The hall was quiet and darker than he remembered it before.  Templars stood everywhere, hands clasped behind their backs: a uniform set of guards for the men and women that laid on the cots surrounding him.  Of those that filled the cots, some were mages, some were templars; he was familiar with most of them.  With measured, reluctant movements he scanned the crowd in the dim light for some sign of Neria.  Though he didn’t think he was ready to talk to her, he needed to know that she was safe.    
  
Nearby he heard a muffled chant in a familiar woman’s voice, and he turned towards the sound.  It wasn’t Neria.  She was in Chantry robes, and for a moment he thought she was the woman that had been caught with the blood mage, Jowan.  But memory chimed in to remind him that she had been taken to Aeonar.  So he stared, partially because he was too tired to move much more than he already had and then he continued to stare because he finally recognized the woman as the Sister who had been with Neria.  She was the woman with the bright red hair, who had been kind and offered him water when he’d seen no one else for so long.  
  
His head hurt at the thought of his prison, and he closed his eyes tightly to push the memories away.  Leaning forward, hands against his thighs, he kept his eyes closed and focused on the words the woman recited.  Each word was a beat of his own heart; those words had etched their homes inside him, bruises on the inside where they’d struggled to protect him from his prison.  If only the words of the Chant were as effective at beating against magical barriers.  Those words had been more than a comfort; they’d been his steady companion.  
  
Silence broke his thoughts, the Chant torn away from him as noticeably as if he had been the one speaking.  Cullen’s eyes shot open, and he watched as the woman used the wall as leverage to stand up.  As she turned her eyes met his and she smiled.  It was soft and sad, the barest hint of a thing, almost like the one she’d given him before she and Neria and the others had disappeared into the tower.  It felt wrong somehow to accept even that small kindness.  He had not earned it.  But the Chant, now that she was done, he missed that and it was the thought of it that had him looking up again.    
  
She was close and coming closer, still watching him.  The smile was gone and what replaced it was an expression he couldn’t read: her lips were pinched, brow crinkled in a way he thought could be sadness.  He swallowed nervously and looked back down, joining his hands together in his lap.  
  
“Hello.  Cullen, yes?”  She whispered, but he could still hear the lilt to her words, the way his name twisted off her tongue in a way that was decidedly not Ferelden.  
  
He didn’t know what to say, or how to answer.  This was a woman who, no matter what her affiliations to the Chantry were, had seen him at his absolute worst.  It had been his most desperate moment: Neria, the real Neria, coming to save him.  He never wanted that.  
  
“It’s alright.  We don’t have to talk,” she said.  “May I sit?”  He caught her gesture towards his cot out of the corner of his eye and nodded.  
  
She swept her hand under her legs to smooth down her robes as she sat.  There was enough room on the edge of his cot for her but only barely.  As much as he could, he scooted to give her room and she shuffled to fill up the space as he gave it to her.  He wanted to ask her-- he wanted to ask her a lot of things-- _if she was comfortable, why she was talking to him, where Neria was and if she was alright, why she had stopped chanting_ , but all he could manage was to make a little coughing sound, clearing his throat.  
  
Next to him the woman tittered quietly, lifting a hand out of his view, but he assumed to cover her mouth when her laugh muffled.  
  
“Sorry,” she whispered.  
  
Cullen shook his head and searched for something to say.  He settled on, “Thanks”.  
  
There was a long silence in which her hand reappeared in her own lap, but she said nothing.  Thinking he’d said the wrong thing, Cullen kept his head down.  It was easier to pretend that he wasn’t always saying the wrong things if he couldn’t see who he was talking to.  
  
Eventually she said, “Neria talked about you.”  
  
Her words were still, quiet enough that he only had to be startled by the content of her words and not the sound of them when she spoke again.  And they were plenty to take on their own, those words: _Neria talked about you_.  
  
As thick and forced as the words were, he asked, “Is she alright?”  
  
The woman chuckled, and it was more breath than sound.  “Oh yes.  I’m sorry.  Neria is fine.  She’s strong, that one.”  
  
He swam through a wave of relief to lift his head, searching her face for whether or not she spoke the truth.  And everything about her, from the way her head canted to the side to the way, and her lips curled into a smile, and she watched him with softness in her eyes: blue and shining with quiet laughter, said that she was truthful.  Neria was fine.    
  
But he knew her strength already.  Strong barely touched the surface of the Neria he knew.  
  
“Do you want to know anything else?” she asked.  “Has no one else talked to you?”  
  
Cullen tried to remember if anyone else had been by, anyone that wasn’t the mage woman reaching towards him with her magic.  No.  He could remember no one else.  Shaking his head he pressed his lips together and wrung his hands in his lap.  There were other questions.  Knowing Neria was safe lessened the pressure of them, so he shook his head again, slower this time.  
  
She nodded.  “Is it alright if I just sit with you then?  Just for a little while?”  
  
He looked around the room, at the quiet sleeping forms of the others. It was unlikely he would be able to sleep like they did anytime soon.  Having the company of a Sister at his side was a similar sort of peace, he supposed.  After everything, the best thing he needed right now was not sleep, but the Maker’s forgiveness.  
  
He nodded.  
  
“Good.  I’m Leliana,” she said.  “If there’s something you need, let me know.  Otherwise I can just sit here with you.  Or I can pray with you,” she ducked her head to catch his eye, “if you’d like that instead.”  
  
He nodded again.  He’d prayed so much Cullen didn’t know what else she could pray for that he hadn’t already, or even if the power of her prayers would make things any different than they were already.   With no answer in mind, he watched her as she smiled again.  She took a breath and then looked down at her hands with a resigned nod.    
  
She was kind, but he wondered if she was just as lost now with how to proceed as he was.  At least now he knew her name.    
  
“Cullen.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
They sat in silence for a while, neither of them moving any more than the slow and steady fall of breaths.  Cullen noticed the hall smelled of incense, and he wondered if Leliana has walked through the hall with a censer while he’d been resting and unaware.  It was faint, but the smell reminded him of younger years: a fresh recruit still waiting for the days he’d be assigned somewhere.  There was another smell too, sickness and blood, and the faint tingling itch of magic that made him wrinkle his nose when he felt it.    
  
“You could come with us, you know,” Leliana said after a while.  
  
Cullen, lost in thought, took a moment to register what she said.  When he did, his eyes widened as he turned to her. _Go with them? … To what purpose?_  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Leliana laughed: a crystalline thing that echoed softly off the stone.  “The Blight, of course.  You could fight with us.  Maker knows she needs the help.  And she took me in...”  
  
Sharply, he said, “To what purpose?”    
  
“I think you must be very brave.”  
  
He didn’t feel brave, not anymore.  Frowning he said, “No.”  This woman had seen him at his worst and she called him brave.  It didn’t set well with him; his grip tightened on the sides of his cot; the wood creaked.  
  
“There were others in the tower,” she swept a hand out to the room, indicating the beds around him filled with injured people.  “Many of them did not fare half as well as you.”  She sighed and he felt her gaze, weariness settling into his shoulders at the weight of it.  “We need whatever help we can get.”  
  
Even if it was true, he thought, the tower was still a dangerous place.  There was no telling how many of the injured mages around him had turned to blood magic.  Or how many demons still roamed the halls.  There was no way to be certain about the tower now.  Too much work remained, there would be even more.  “That may be,” Cullen said, “but there is work to do here.”  
  
Leliana shrugged.  “Neria spoke with your Knight-Commander before we went into the tower.  He offered protection to the Wardens if we returned with the First Enchanter.  She’s going to speak with him again; he might be willing to send templars to stand against this Blight.  If he did, would you come?”  
  
Already weary, the thought of battle, any battle, was overwhelming.  But a Blight... Cullen knew the Grey Warden had come to the tower looking for recruits (and had found Neria) but he had not known whether or not to believe if the rumors of the Blight were true.  When Neria had left with him, after her friend, Jowan, had shown himself a blood mage and escaped, Cullen had only considered Neria’s recruitment a blessing-in-disguise.  Had the Warden not been present-- Cullen did not like to think of what could have happened to Neria.  
  
Keeping his voice low as he could, he asked, “Is it really a Blight?”  
  
“Neria thinks so.  And the others.”

“And you?”  
  
Leliana looked away, eyes cast down and, in the silence that followed, Cullen found himself hinged on what her answer would be.  A Chantry Sister-- if she believed it was a Blight, was it?  The thought made his skin crawl and he felt his chest tighten, wary that the demon would return.  
  
Solemnly Leliana whispered, “I do.”  Even spoken almost inaudibly, the two words were said with such conviction that Cullen could do nothing but believe her.    
  
“Maker,” he whispered.  
  
He felt the movement as Leliana nodded.  He was overcome in that moment by a heavy dizziness; his eyes closed, and he slumped forward using his hands against the sides of the cot to keep his balance.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Leliana said as he pulled himself back.  “You must be tired.  I didn’t mean to bother you with this.”  She busied herself with standing and straightening her robes.  Then she frowned at him, concern wrinkling lines on her forehead.    
  
Head heavy, it was hard to shake it to tell her that he was not ready for her to leave.  He knew what waited if he tried to sleep and the talk of Neria fighting a Blight would not help matters.    
  
“I’ll let you rest.”  She sighed, but as he moved to lay down, she asked, “Is there anything you need?”  
  
 _Yes,_ he thought, _for none of this to have happened._  But something of that magnitude was beyond her reach or his.  He lay down and turned his head up to look at her, finding her smiling softly at him.  He nodded his head against his pillow, and his eyes closed because he had not the strength to keep them open.  
  
“Don’t leave,” he whispered.    
  
He heard the rustling sound of her robes and then Cullen felt Leliana’s hand on his shoulder.  “I’m right here.  Whatever you need.”  
  
Sleep was on his heels, and he needed to keep the darkness at bay.  Without opening his eyes, he asked, “Pray?”   
  
“Of course.”    
  
He felt his cot shift, a weight pressed just at the edge and he opened his eyes just enough to watch as Leliana bent down between his bed and the next one over.  She smiled sweetly as she clasped her hand together.  “I’ll watch over you,” she whispered and then bent her head.    
  
He’d been alone in the tower for so long that the hall felt crowded, even with so many quiet, sleeping forms.  But Leliana was closer than anyone else and so still, that when he focused on the sound of her voice his body relaxed, carrying him back towards sleep.  In those bleary moments where sleep was within reach but the words of the chant still resonated in his mind, the hint of a smile in her voice kept dark memories at bay.

***

  
When Cullen woke again, Leliana was no longer at his side or even within sight.  Disappointed, he distracted himself with testing how he felt: flexing arms and legs, fingers and toes.  He found little hurt, and he was able to rise from his cot easily and did so eagerly.  There was a pleasant buzz in his veins, the strength of a recent dose of lyrium coursing through him.    
  
Many others seemed to have also left their cots in lieu of conversation and a few moments on their feet; the hall felt crowded again and overwhelming.  Cullen did not want to stand around and chit-chat about the recovery of the tower and instead went in search of the Knight-Commander.  If he was recovered, Cullen was determined to resume his duties, the tower was ill-equipped with templars and it would be days still, if not weeks more, before new templars could be recruited to the tower.  Tumultuous though his mind was: clouded, with darkness at the edges fighting to show him the tower as it had been where mages and templars were running and hiding, Cullen was able to blink each of the memories away, hastening his steps to find the Knight-Commander.  
  
He found not only Knight-Commander Greagoir, but also two Grey Wardens and First Enchanter Irving; all four of them locked in conversation.  As he approached he recognized one as Neria, and at the sight of her Cullen was nearly ready to turn back around.  The other he knew only from their brief meeting in the tower, and... something else, he felt as though the man was further familiar, but he could not place it.  Discounting it as a fault in his memory after everything else that had happened, Cullen turned his focus to the Knight-Commander.  Cullen was hovering in the doorway, trying to decide whether or not to interrupt what seemed like a serious discussion when Greagoir spotted him.  
  
“Ser Cullen,” Greagoir waved him inside, and both Neria and the other warden turned to regard him.  
  
Cullen ducked his head to avoid the stares of the two wardens, but made his way inside the Knight-Commander’s office.  For the first time since he’d woken up, Cullen felt the distinct lack of his armor and his sword.  He didn’t remember seeing those things near his cot, and as he approached Greagoir’s desk, he made a note to himself to check his room later for his things.  Not that he was eager to put them on again but having noticed they were gone meant knowing how vulnerable he was without them.    
  
He’d had quite enough of feeling bare and unprotected.  
  
“It’s good to see you awake,” Greagoir acknowledged.  Cullen nodded, unsure how to answer or whether or not the wrong answer would get him sent from the room.  
  
Quiet and solemn, Neria asked, “How are you feeling?”  He heard her concern but all it did was echo in his head, her voice was too much the same.  She might be real, she might be _the_ Neria he had known for years, but nothing about her felt the same to him anymore.  She might as well have been a memory for all the pleasure he took in her countenance.  
  
“Glad to be awake,” he murmured.  Turning to Knight-Commander Greagoir, he added, “Ready to serve.”  
  
With a grunt, Greagoir frowned.  Tempted to shrink under the Knight-Commander’s scrutiny, he straightened up, lifting his chin, and tried not to meet the older man’s glare.  After a moment’s appraisal, Greagoir said, “We were just discussing the tower’s future.”  
  
Cullen’s gaze swept back to Neria, then to the First Enchanter.  What future was the tower to have now?  How many of them could possibly be left?  And of what was left, how many of them could be trusted.  Anger welled in his chest, aching and darkening his vision.    
  
His jaw tense Cullen asked, “What future is there?”  
  
The First Enchanter sighed.  “Many of our mages remain.  As does the tower itself.  The Circle can be rebuilt.”  
  
“You cannot know who is safe and who is not.”  She gestured at her warden companion and then settled her hand on his arm.  “Most of the mages that remained fought us.”  Her voice lowered, nearly a whisper as she added, “So many of them turned to blood magic, against each other, against us.  “How can you can be sure the ones that remain won’t also?” Neria asked, her blue eyes wide and pleading as she faced the First Enchanter.  
  
“I do not know.” the older man replied.  
  
“You cannot guarantee anyone’s safety until you do,” Neria countered.  
  
Surprised as he was to hear her speak in such a way, Cullen was calmed by it.  If she understood the trouble the remaining mages could pose, then perhaps the Circle would undergo the annulment after all.  Greagoir looked uncertain and he and Irving exchanged a nervous glance.  
  
“As much as I dislike saying it, she is correct.”  Irving frowned and looked away from the rest of them.   
  
Greagoir sighed heavily, and with the metallic ring of armor sliding against armor, he folded his arms over his chest.  “I have already called for the Rite of Annulment.  Would you have me use it when it arrives?”  
  
Cullen nodded vigorously; this was the clearest thought he’d had since the time before Uldred returned from Ostagar.  Yes, the Rite should be used; the tower needed to be cleansed.  He spared a glance at Neria.  His left eye twitched and the nodding of his head became a quick shake to correct his vision.  “Yes,” he growled.  “Use the Rite.”  
  
He heard Neria take in a sharp breath but a moment later she said, “After what we saw... It’s the only way to be certain, Knight-Commander.”  
  
Cullen’s relief was palpable, his chest heaving with stress, deflated.  His shoulders sagged, and he closed his eyes waiting for his next steady breath.  He could not see them, but during the silence that followed, he imagined the exchanged looks of solemn agreement.  Though it was the right choice, it was no easy one for any of them.  He considered himself lucky that he’d happened upon them when he did.    
  
The quiet was broken by a hissed whisper, a voice he did not recognized but assumed was the other Warden, “Do you really agree with this?”  
  
“I do,” Neria replied.  
  
“Warden,” the Knight-Commander’s voice rumbled and Cullen heard a familiar tone of leadership in his mentor’s voice.  “You are a templar, are you not?”    
  
Cullen opened his eyes, curious at this turn of events, in time to see the other warden nod his head.  “Nearly,” the man replied.    
  
“Then you understand the seriousness of this decision.  It is not one I make lightly, not even on the word of a Warden.”  The Knight-Commander nodded towards Neria.  “However, the situation is too volatile.  When even the First Enchanter cannot be certain the tower is safe-”  
  
Irving shook his head and looked away again.  His expression was pained and it was obvious even to Cullen that the man was near tears.  
  
“... then I will do what needs to be done.  The Rite is our guarantee of safety for the future mages of this Circle.”  Without waiting for a reply, he looked again at Neria.  “Warden, when it is done, I will honor my offer of Templars to your efforts.  Until then, I will need all that remain to help put the Tower in order.”  
  
“I understand.  Thank you Knight-Commander.”  She made no further comment and instead jerked her chin at the other warden and nodded towards the door.    
  
For the first time since he’d come across the group, Cullen took in a very deep breath, one that burned his chest and the inside of his nose.  He remembered his conversation with Leliana about the Blight, and her offer to accompany them when they left.  Here, the Knight-Commander was confirming at least a part of that story and Cullen wondered if all of it had been true.  Had Neria wanted him to join them?  Why, when she had another templar at her disposal, and a Warden at that.    
  
A part of him wanted to interrupt her as she left, to talk to her about everything that had happened in that room he’d been trapped in.  But he didn’t know what to say.  His memory of her, as tangled as it was now, was clear.  He remembered every desperate and pleading word from either his mouth or hers.  In that moment, as he watched her walk away, all that was left in him was frustration and anger.  Had she not tempted him so and for so long, the demon could not have used his memories of her to taunt him as it had.    
  
Perhaps he might not have been trapped for so long.  
  
Perhaps it would not have come to this: where she could leave the room without as much as a look in his direction.  Cullen watched as the Warden at her side grabbed Neria’s hand, and his heart sunk.  It was the final slamming door against what might have been.

***

  
The woman in the Chantry robes met him before the Wardens left to further prepare their army.  Whatever his feelings for Neria now, he was grateful to see Leliana again.  In a time of need she had tried to comfort him.  And as he’d healed, she had sought again to give him peace.  Whatever her reasons, he felt he owed her a debt for her kindness.    
  
Many of the templars had gathered in the hall to see the Wardens off.  Irving and Greagoir spoke with Neria and Wynne in hushed voices, and Cullen stood just far enough back from Greagoir’s left hand to not be able to hear much more than the hiss of their voices.    
  
Cullen felt strange in his armor.  It would take some getting used to, he supposed, to feel less trapped inside it, less restricted than he did now.  Once he had been so used to it he had felt light, and otherly without it.  Now each time he moved he was acutely aware of all the places that had only recently ached from the weight of it all.  
  
Maybe it was that awareness that made it so easy for him to discern the weight on his arm when someone placed their hand on top of it.  He turned slowly as not to make too much noise and found Leliana at his side.  She smiled brightly and as she moved to come around to face him, he caught the lightness of her perfume: something that distinctly smelled of of places in Thedas he would never visit.    
  
Truth told, her touch startled him slightly but the distraction of her pleasant smile pulled him easily from his thoughts and into her orbit.  He followed her as she tugged ever so gently on his arm and led him away from the discussion he hadn’t been paying attention to anyway.  
  
“How are you feeling?”   
  
He shrugged the little bit his armor allowed and said, “Better.  I think.”  
  
“We’re leaving soon,” she said.  “Have you considered what we talked about?”  Her brow lifted and she bit the corner of her lip as she waited for his response.  
  
Cullen’s attention was drawn down by the heavier weight on his arm, realizing that her hand had not moved.  He stared at her hand, it being the better option than the hope in her eyes.  He had not forgotten her question, though the future of the tower was more certain now than it had been when she’d asked.  And he was recovered, or as much as a few days of rest could give him.  Could he then, just go?  The Rite might not arrive for weeks and there was much to do in preparation for its arrival.    
  
Cullen’s gaze slid from Leliana’s hand to the place where Neria and Gregoir still stood in conversation.  Wynne and Irving had stepped away from Neria and the Knight-Commander and seemed to be locked in a heated debate.  From the few words he could make out if he strained to listen, Cullen could tell the woman was making her disapproval of the Rite known.  The First Enchanter attempted to calm her and a moment later, Neria was moving between them.  Wynne turned away from them both and stalked off down the corridor.  Cullen caught sight of Greagoir following after the woman, when Leliana caught his attention again.  
  
“Cullen?” she whispered.  
  
“I don’t think I can.”  He frowned and looked back at her. Her hesitant smile faltered, and she drew her eyebrows together in confusion.    
  
“Why?”  
  
“There is still work here that needs to be done,” he answered.  His place was the tower, not in the sun.  Just the thought of all that open sky and unending roads... not to mention the Blight, as hard as it was to be here after everything that had happened, it was still his home.  He wanted to explain; he sighed and lifted a hand to his forehead.    
  
Nearby, Neria laughed.  Instinct turned his head to look for her.  Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders as she bent over, laughing again.  There was joy in her smile as she looked up at the other Warden and held her hand on his arm for balance.    
  
“She...”  
  
“It’s not my place,” Cullen said, speaking over whatever Leliana might have said.  
  
He lowered his hand and looked back to the Chantry Sister to find her lips set into a deep frown.  She shook her head as they found each other’s gaze and the realization came to him that she too had been watching Neria.  Her frown faded, but there was still sadness in her features and Cullen hesitated.  There had been more on the tip of his tongue, but he paused remembering that Leliana had been there to see him at his worst.  She had to have heard the things he’d said to Neria when they’d found him.    
  
Whether she had chosen to forget them, or did not care that he had said them, Leliana had been nothing but kind to him.  Maybe before, after the Grey Warden had taken Neria, he would have gone too if the offer had been made-- Blight or not.  If it had meant more time with Neria, he likely would have jumped at the chance to be out of the tower, and at Neria’s side.  Yet, now when perhaps there was the best chance for them to be closer than they ever could have been, he was turning the opportunity away.  And the reasons had little to do with the nearly-a-templar already at her side.  
  
He didn’t have much to offer in explanation, so he said, “Thank you,” instead.  “Maker keep you, Sister Leliana.  It was nice of you to offer.”  
  
When she frowned again, he saw the understanding --or perhaps it was resignation-- settle in her expression.  She nodded once and then softly canted her head.  “It wasn’t my offer.”  She shrugged and then whispered, “And I’m not a Sister.  Only Affirmed.”    
  
Leliana leaned in and, this time when she reached a hand for him, it was to push herself up on her tiptoes so she could whisper in his ear.  “Be well, Cullen.”  
  
His eyes widened as she drew away, but he had no good response.  Breath fluttering as she grinned up at him, Cullen felt as though he was looking at the redhead anew.  He was all nerves and stuttering tongue as he tried to say what he had planned to say by way of goodbye: “M-m-maker, be with you.”  
  
“And with you.”  As she stepped away from him, she smiled.  “We’ll see you soon.”


	2. Remember Thee

The second time they met, it was on the worst day of his life.

***

  
Knight-Commander Greagoir was true to his word.  Though the Circle in Ferelden would take a long time to be rebuilt, it was at the time the news came, free of suspicion and doubt.  It was the calmest Cullen had felt in some time, knowing he didn’t need to walk the halls in fear.  Once a younger, more idealistic version of himself might have been disappointed to the lengths that had been taken to ensure the future safety of the Circle; the version of himself that had barely survived the tortures of Uldred and the demon, and the loss of his templar brethren, was glad to see it done.    
  
He thought often of Neria in the months that followed her rescue, grateful to her for seeing the sense of the situation.  It was her word that had tipped the Knight-Commander, and his promise of the company of templar that had Cullen marching towards Denerim.    
  
The road to the city was long.  And like many of those that travelled with him, he had not seen such unending land and sky in a very long time.  With the walls of the tower only just beginning to feel safe again, the expanse of Ferelden quickly became overwhelming.  Cullen marched with his head down, watching the boots of the man in front of him, to keep from feeling dizzy at the sights around him.  
  
The fear of the world around him was only second to the fear of the demon they had yet to face. Even for their isolation on Lake Calenhad, word had spread of the Warden’s progress across Ferelden, of the Landsmeet that had been called and now, the final march against the Archdemon.  It was as they prepared for the latter, that Neria herself had sent word to the Knight-Commander that it was time for his promise to be fulfilled.  
  
So they marched.  Only a day outside Lake Calenhad, and it was obvious that there were few places that had not seen the ravages of war already.  Villages were burned, and Cullen remembered the rumors that the Queen’s Regent had sent men into the Bannorn to pull the men and women of Ferelden under his banner by force.  But those were only the places where people remained.  Other villages were devoid completely and in them, it was more obvious the steps of the darkspawn had passed before their company of templars.  
  
It was a strange feeling to know that they were on the heels of the enemy heading to the heart of their country, and not the other way around.    
  
Cullen’s nights turned darker when he dreamed.  
  
Once, before the ruin of the tower, before Neria had run off to become a Warden, Cullen’s dreams had been pleasant affairs.  Prayers came easily to his lips, the Chant of Light was easily recited, and Neria was a pleasantly tempting sight.  When his best confliction was about the star-crossed destiny of a mage and he, the templar that loved her, his nights had been easy.  At least the need to call his body to its knees to pray the Maker keep his thoughts from straying to a woman he knew he could not have seemed now like such a simple problem.  
  
When the company stopped to camp at night, Cullen slept alone, outside of the tents.  It was cold, and he often volunteered instead to stand watch (or traded for a watch despite Greagoir’s disapproving looks).  If he slept, his nights were filled with dangerous dreams: demons and darkness.  Of temptation.  And his need for lyrium to keep the memories at bay had increased a thing that had, more than once since Uldred had been defeated, deeply furrowed the brows of the Knight-Commander as he upped Cullen’s doses.

***

  
Denerim’s gates were busted and smoldering when they arrived.  They halted just outside the city walls, where all around them stood a band of strangers ready for battle: wolves that stood like men, a dark legion of dwarves, and men and women standing under a Redcliffe banner.  At the center, Cullen could just make out two figures in the distinctive blue and grey of the Wardens.  They talked with people he could not see and, while he and the men around him waited for their orders, Cullen scanned the crowd for a better view.  
  
Moving a few steps to one side, he was able to better see Neria and the other Warden, as well as another familiar face.  She couldn’t see him, but down the line of people between them, Cullen had a nearly perfect view of Leliana in the middle of the crowd.  She was surrounded by a few others: people that did not look as though they belonged to one of the larger crowds.  Cullen watched as the Knight-Commander joined the group speaking with the Wardens.    
  
It only took a few minutes for commands to be assigned before Greagoir was making his way back to the company and repeating the orders to all of them.  
  
Cullen had never seen Denerim in anything other than crude sketches in study books, but it was obvious that whatever it had been was ruined.  Beyond the broken gates he could see half-fallen buildings and fires along the main road.  And if he stood still enough, he could feel the lurking evil beyond the walls, the shuffle of darkspawn that had come before to ransack the city.  
  
There was little time for distraction or the heavy drag of memory before Greagoir returned to them.  The older man looked tired, as though the last few minutes had been hours instead.  Voice low, he gave a few directions to nearby men and then to the rest of them he said:  
  
“Get your rest, men.  The Wardens plan to attack mid-day, we’ll follow at her command.”  
  
Cullen watched the Knight-Commander’s face for some sign that he regretted his decision to bring them to battle, or even that he disliked the idea of taking direction from a mage: warden or not.  Greagoir’s expression revealed nothing other than age and fatigue.  
  
As those around him (and the dwarves and the wolves and the men nearby) broke rank to set up their temporary camps, Cullen found himself in front of the Knight-Commander.  He looked no better up close, and Cullen intended as he had done so often, to offer to stand watch.  
  
“Cullen.”  Greagoir’s voice carried the heaviness of Kinloch’s stone walls, and up close it was easy to see the red around his eyes that indicated the late nights and early mornings Cullen knew all too well.    
  
“Knight-Commander,” he greeted with soft caution.  “I wanted to offer...”  
  
He was cut off by Greagoir’s raised hand.  “No. I know what you’d ask.”  His commander fixed him with a disapproving stare, the kind that had terrified him as a new recruit.  “In fact, I know how often you’ve taken more than your share of watches.  So, no.  In this, of all places, you’ll try and get some rest.”  
  
The dread of unbroken sleep, hours in which a demon could crawl its way into his nightmares, slipped cold fingers down his spine.  Cullen widened his eyes and swallowed, unsure how to convince the Knight-Commander.  His mouth went dry, his tongue too thick to form any of the words he needed, not even something as simple as: _I don’t want to sleep._  Darkness was an easy crutch, but in the bright light of morning in the shadow of a city on fire, Cullen was only left to blame his own mind.  The evils and temptations of his own memory were not things he could explain easily, or at all, to his commanding officer.  
  
So he didn’t.  
  
When he had the wherewithal to speak again, he said, “Yes, Knight-Commander,” nodded, and turned away to hide the hurt in his eyes.  
  
It had been months since the attack.  He prayed.  He recited the chant.  Nothing quieted his mind like he thought it should.  Or like the Knight-Commander kept telling him that it would.  
  
“And Cullen?”  The Knight-Commander called him back before he could take a second step towards the small tent village that was being built by his fellow templar.    
  
“Yes, Ser?”  He blinked slowly, and took a deep breath before turning back to face Greagoir.    
  
“When this is over...” Greagoir’s shoulders fell, and he exhaled a deep breath.  “I’d like us to talk about finding you a better assignment.  Perhaps somewhere outside of Ferelden.”  
  
 _Away from Kinloch,_ Cullen thought.    
  
It was a surprise but the thought that came on its heels was like a salve to his nightmares.  The promise of the idea was enough to leave his mouth hanging open as he stared at the Knight-Commander.  His head echoed with a single thought: _< i>away.</i>_  
  
“Cullen?”    
  
“I- uh-” he nodded his head with the abandon of excitement.  “Yes, Knight-Commander.”  
  
He didn’t even break a smile, but he could hear the approval in the older man’s voice when he said, “Good.  Now, for Andraste’s sake, go get some rest.”  
  
Cullen did as he was bid without another thought.  He only needed the one to keep him company as he returned to his tent and his bedroll.  The ground was hard. After the time it took to climb out of his armor and to guide his excited thoughts through a few lines of the Chant of Light, sleep was not so easy to come by.  But, for the first time in months, the sleep that he found in those few hours of morning were free of worrying darkness. 

***

  
It was not a nightmare, but the rallying cry of the Knight-Commander that woke him from sleep.  Those around him were already stepping back into their armor. After wiping sleep from his eyes, he started to do the same.    
  
“Cullen?”    
  
If he had a thousand years to live, he knew he would always be able to tell the sound of her voice.  At one time, though it felt like a lifetime ago, the soft timbre of Neria’s voice had brought a smile to his face.  Now, just his name from her lips sent pinpricks of anxiety down his spine.  He spun to find her, his hand clenching as a fist in fear when it did not easily find his sword.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  He didn’t know if he was more angry or afraid, but he knew that Neria was not the person he wanted or was prepared to see.  Frowning, he looked away from her to finish a buckle on his armor.    
  
She sighed.  “I came to see how you are.”  
  
He lifted his hands, exasperated.   _Why now?_  She hadn’t spoken to him at all before she left the tower.  Not that he could even look at her without small tremors in his hands and the urge to run or kneel; whatever would get the demon to leave him alone.  
  
When he didn’t respond, Neria continued, “I’m sorry Cullen.  I should have been there sooner.  I wish we’d spoken... you know... after.”  
  
“You weren’t.”  Anger crept into his voice, and those two words were an accusation.  It hadn’t been the first time she’d left him, but it hurt just the same.  His eyes flicked up to find her reaction, chastised, and... something else.  
  
“No.  I was- I was scared.”  
  
Cullen’s throat was tight, and he swallowed down the dry scratch in his throat.  Her words seemed sincere.  More than that, he thought.  His eyes focused on hers, green and gold and he thought of the woods his company had marched through.  Something in him softened at the similarity, and a memory returned to him.  

 

It had been just she and him in the tower chantry, and there had been a solemn recitation between them.  The Chant of Light was not meant to be a promise of love, least of all between a mage and a templar, but the two of them had made it such when they feared anyone could hear.  Neria had leaned in to kiss him, and at the time, it hadn’t felt like a goodbye.  But it had been.  
  
He closed his eyes, “As was I.”  
  
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”  She frowned and took a few steps, closing the distance between them.    
  
A part of him squirmed at how close she was, and instinctively he took a step back.  He pushed away the fear as best he could to acknowledge her apology for what it was: too late but sincere.  “Me too.”  
  
Neria stepped forward again, brow wrinkled in confusion, and her mouth turned down.  “Cullen... I think we should talk about what happened.”  She stretched a hand towards him, and the control he’d kept in place during her slow approach slipped from him.    
  
“No.  I don’t think we should.”  He moved out of her reach and bent for his gloves.  Everything he wanted to say had gone out the door with her months before.  He wanted to be done thinking about what happened and to have her appear to bring everything up...    
  
Cullen shook his head.  “I don’t want to talk about it, Neria.”  
  
Her hands moved before she spoke, a vague gesture that caught his eye, but he couldn’t see enough of to know what it meant. The silence while he waited for her to speak was oppressive, bearing down on him like the warm air that drifted over the walls of Denerim. And all he wanted was a moment’s breeze.    
  
Instead she stoked the fire.  
  
“I heard what you said that day,” she whispered.  “Before you know I was there, or... believed it was me.”  
  
It felt like a fist in his chest, the quick, sharp pang of claws on his heart.  His eyes locked with hers, and he pressed his lips together as his head started to shake.    
  
She continued.  “I wanted so badly to talk to you after, but you were hurt and sleeping.”  Neria’s hands folded over each other, and then she wrung them over each other as she paused, frown deepening.  “Do you know how much I missed you in those first few months?  After that kiss … I wished for a better goodbye, or for more time.  I wanted--”  
  
Her words came at him quickly, and he heard the frenzy in them, the frustration. All he could do was stare at her.  In a flash, a slow smile as she tried to explain something to him; he could feel his breath shorten.  All the time that he’d spent praying to forget, he was right back in that room.    
  
Cullen had heard words like this before.    
  
His breath quickened as the heat in the air felt like stone walls closing in all around him.   And his armor, warm as he strapped it in place, now felt like ice where it touched his skin.  The gloves in his hands dropped to the ground.    
  
Softly, in disbelief, he said, “No.  Not this.  Not now.”  Louder, he repeated it, and then louder again until it was a shout, and he was putting his hands over his eyes.  “NO!  STOP!”  
  
He started to fall to his knees, the months between them collapsing until all he could hear was the silence of stone walls and the soft, tempting breath that blew against his neck.  Neria was at his side in an instant, and Cullen reeled away from her touch, having to lower his hands in order to keep himself from falling over.    
  
“I didn’t mean- Cullen- Maker, I’m sorry!”  Neria jerked her hands back.    
  
He balanced on his knees and hung his head.  His sight was dark, and he closed his eyes to block out everything, including his own misguided vision.  There was a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. For several minutes he sat quiet while he kept even the Chant of Light at bay for fear of falling back into his tower prison.  
  
Slowly he recognized a sound other than the dull buzz of silence.  It was soft and steady, and in a few moments his breathing matched its rhythm.  It was then that he opened his eyes, finding dirt and grass under his knees instead of the cold stone he remembered.  Other sounds returned faster: men laughing, a clatter of armor nearby, the Knight-Commander far away and shouting orders.  The air was acrid, smoky, and he swallowed several times to feel something other than dryness in his throat.    
  
When he looked up, Neria was standing quietly with her hands folded in front of her several feet away.  For maybe the first time since he’d seen her in the tower, he realized that a sword hung at her hip, and that her robes were heavier, studded like armor.  She was watching him, green eyes soft and not full of pity as he expected, sadness perhaps, but not pity.  He realized in that moment what he’d seen but not understood before.  
  
Neria, since she had left him in the tower to become a Warden, had become more than that.  She was a warrior, capable and certain.   She had never been meek, but this was strength he’d not seen in her before.  It was, as it had been before, her eyes that he relied on to tell him that she was who she appeared to be.  She was no demon.  
  
Just the ghost of what could have been.

***

  
Cullen had only finished saying goodbye to Neria when he heard men gathering nearby.  Neria had left his tent and moved through their camp to speak with the Knight-Commander.  It was only moments after he spied her leaving the templar camp altogether Cullen heard Greagoir calling out commands for formation.    
  
He ignored the irregular and inconsistent tremors that shook his hands as he listened to the Knight Commander’s instructions.  Focus on the battle plan helped keep dangerous thoughts at bay, though it did little for the fear working its way through him.  The fight would do that; he felt eager for battle and listened to the strategy the Wardens had worked out as the Knight Commander explained it.  From what Cullen understood, Neria’s small contingent would move first against the two war leaders inside the city and then, they would challenge the Archdemon at the top of Fort Drakon.  Many of the Redcliffe soldiers that had been steadily lining up close to the city’s walls would hold the darkspawn away from the key areas of the city, led by some of the Warden’s trusted few.  The rest: the templars, the dwarves, and the wolves, would be called on as needed.  They could not be as effective if they were trapped in a battle on the streets of Denerim while the Wardens fought through the tower. Cullen had little mind for battle tactics on the best of days, so the strategy behind their assignments was lost to him, but he understood his place.  
  
Redcliffe soldiers filed into the the smouldering ruins of Denerim, and on a fresh Lyrium high, the templars marched behind them, led by Knight-Commander Greagoir.  The Wardens had gone ahead, as the soldiers split away from them, Cullen caught sight of Neria’s party sweeping down the main corridor of the city to take down the first of the darkspawn war leaders.  It was clear time was of the essence as the dragon screeched overhead.  Even with the Warden’s head start, it did not take long for the templars to encounter their own battles with the darkspawn.  As prepared as they were for the fight, the voracity of the darkspawn was unexpected.  They’d been warned that as they neared the Archdemon the enemy might gather strength, but foreknowledge did not level the battlefield.    
  
The first horn sounded after Neria’s party had taken down the first of the darkspawn’s war leaders.  The rest of them stayed back as she swept down the second corridor of the city, making her way after the other ogre.  From the Alienage the horn sounded triumphant, it echoed through the trees and reverberated back into the stone.  Yet the sound indicated something far darker than the echoes into the city.  That horn called back for help.  From where they fought, they could see the market but would not be able to cross the city in time.  Knight Commander Greagoir yelled for them to hold their ground, and many of them looked on between traded blows with the darkspawn as the wolves charged through the gates to aid the Wardens in their stead.  
  
Overhead the dragon circled the city and roared.  Even in the midst of a fight, many of the darkspawn raised fists and swords as a gout of flame struck a row of buildings nearby.  Moments later, there was a scream from the tower, a man in Warden colors jumped and caught a ride on the back of the dragon with a sword in it’s neck.  It felt as though the stone beneath his feet rumbled, and Cullen watched the speck of a man in the sky, trying to keep his grip on the archdemon.    
  
It was not to last.    
  
Time stretched to a crawl of infinite seconds and the man fell, tossed aside with little more than a flip of the dragon’s tail.  Cullen averted his eyes just before the Warden hit the ground, but the sound echoed back a flat, wet thump on the stones.    
  
Somewhere in the city, his hope rested with Neria and her companions.  
  
Cullen’s chest was clenched tight with worry, even as he fought foes of his own, until he caught sight of wolves and Wardens crossing the market yard.  They closed in on the tower and moments later, Cullen heard Greagoir call out for the templars to push forward.    
  
Fort Drakon was nothing like Kinloch Hold except that it was a round shaped building of stone, but that did not stop the sight of it from squeezing the air from Cullen’s lungs.  There no water, but it was still surrounded, a league of darkspawn had formed beyond its walls.  The wolves had charged ahead of the Warden party, but beyond a few yards it was impossible to know how they fared amid the sea of seething danger.  If the Wardens gained access there was no way to know.  Greagoir ordered their charge anyway, sending them into the teeming darkness.  
  
Trying to stretch his vision to the tower doors, Cullen caught the heft of an axe to his shoulder.  He grunted and staggered to one side, struggling to lift his weapon in return.  As he swung towards the blood-spattered hurlock in front of him, he lost sight of the double doors.  His arms were tired already, vision spotted from the pain in his arm, but the roaring darkspawn was no better off.  Cullen swung again, his hands almost numb with the grip he held on his sword.  He only needed the second strike, enough for his blade to dig home in the hurlock’s neck.  The creature rocked to the side and then slipped to the ground as the mace it carried slipped from its hands.  Stomach heavy with worry and adrenaline, Cullen stepped over the corpse and slipped between his brethren to get closer to the tower.    
  
He didn’t make it but a few steps before the horn sounded a second time.  This time it was a dull sound, muffled by stone and barely carrying over guttural exhalations and clashing steel.  And even though they were close and the sound carried enough to make the Warden’s presence known, despair filled him at the thought he could not respond.  For all the ground they had gained against the darkspawn, the tower was close, but they were not close or quick enough.  Before they had time to do anything more than acknowledge the call, Cullen watched a battalion of dwarves in dark armor breach the entrance of Fort Drakon.      
  
For as few of them that remained by the time they reached the doors themselves, many, many more had died in their places.  He did not like the view from the front entrance, where the sky was already growing dark and the fires burning throughout the city cast dark shadows over the corpses of the fallen.  Templar, wolf and dwarf were indistinguishable from darkspawn, and the sight sent chills down his spine, raising gooseflesh in places clung to by sweat stained clothes.  
  
Cullen found the Knight Commander, though he looked like all the rest of them: covered from helm to boot in blood.  The older man’s beard had turned dark for all the dirt, blood and sweat that had trickled down his face.  Greagoir waved his hands, signaling for them to push to the doors.  There were few of them left but there was a look on the commander’s face that matched the determination that kept Cullen’s hands on his sword.    
  
If the horn sounded a third time, the templars had to respond. There would be no one else.  


***

  
The horn didn’t sounded a third time.  In fact, Greagoir’s hands were barely on the doors when it happened.  There was a light brighter than lightning, and it split the sky from the tower.  All around him was an engulfing sound and the pressure of it built in his head until it drowned out everything else.    
  
Cullen didn’t need anyone to tell him the Archdemon was dead.  Every part of him knew it and with that knowledge came also the awareness that Neria, too, was gone.  In the space of a breath, the memory of a kiss filled with the scent of the woods, and the buzz of lyrium on his skin turned to ash in his mouth.    
  
When the light shot up from the tower, each of them stopped.  All of them were transfixed on the light; it was bright and warm and looked as though the sun itself had exploded from the tower.  In the moments that followed, as the sky darkened again, and while they recovered there was confusion all around the tower.  The darkspawn continued to fight, but it was disorganized.  The darkspawn broke into small groups, falling away from each other and the tower in skirmishes as they tried to flee the confines of the city.    
  
The Knight Commander yelled out and signaled down towards the city.  The templars turned away from the doors and ran after the stragglers.  All except for Cullen whose shoulder rang with new pain as he pushed through the doors into the tower and ran inside.  A part of him wanted to remain with his brethren --reeling in the aftermath-- to build a more complete scene of what was happening behind him.  And then the pressure in his head snapped, his attention focusing on the quiet inside the tower and the piles of darkspawn in the hall.  
  
He swept through several dark corridors certain he was going the right direction with each trail of blood and small piles of darkspawn corpses.  There was a spark under his skin, and for once he did not feel afraid of the shadows, even the long ones that crept before wide doors.    
  
At the top of the first flight of stairs, Cullen stopped with his hand on the door, as voices sounded through the wood.  He froze and a moment later, the door cracked under his hand and then fell away from him with a wide, angry swing.  Members of Redcliffe’s army flanked a man in blue and gray; Cullen recognized him as the Warden he’d seen several times at Neria’s side.  Stepping aside to let them pass, his gaze bounced back and forth between each face.  With the Warden he saw Leliana and a red-headed dwarf who rested an axe as tall as he was over his shoulder.  Behind them a few steps a young man carried a large trunk, with a mabari at his heels.  Cullen saw more of Redcliffe’s soldiers advancing slowly, many of them holding their sides, or limbs where blood trailed in thick drops behind them.  
  
Cullen scanned each face several times, but Neria was not among them.  
  
His gaze went to the Warden in the lead again.  The man seemed to be in pain, limping down the stairs, and Cullen watched as Leliana put a hand on the Warden’s shoulder.  It was then Cullen looked down, and his eyes made out a different pattern of armor in front of the man, a sweep of chestnut hair over a fallen blue hood.    
  
Though he’d felt it when it happened, the reality of it waited to settle until that moment, bearing down on his chest like an anvil.  For the second time in a day, he wanted to fall to his knees, only Neria wasn’t there to catch him, or to tell him what was real and what wasn’t.  
  
Sheer willpower kept him on his feet, pinwheeling with no concern for how he flung himself towards the Warden and Neria.  He only had eyes for the latter, and careened over the broken ground until he met resistance: the flat head of a dwarven axe against his chest plate.  
  
“Stay back,” the red-headed dwarf growled.    
  
Cullen looked down to find the large, heavily armored dwarf covered in blood. The man’s eyes were red and clear streaks ran through the blood and dirt on his cheeks.  He envied the man, such a clear expression of grief, in the tears that continued to fall even as he stood as guard for the Warden.  
  
“Neria--” Cullen choked on her name, pain in every syllable.    
  
“It’s alright, Oghren,” Leliana whispered.    
  
The axe fell away from his chest, hefted back over the dwarf’s shoulder.  Cullen’s eyes swept over Leliana’s grief-stricken face before he focused on Neria laying in the Warden’s arms.  The man had stopped, his knuckles white as they gripped Neria close.  Her slight frame folded easily into the crook of his arms and when Cullen glanced up, he found the man’s gaze focused somewhere in the far distance.  There were tears in his eyes too, rivers dripping onto his armor, but he stared ahead and was so quiet he didn’t even seem to be breathing.    
  
“Cullen,” Leliana said her words soft and careful, “We’re taking her somewhere safe.”  Her voice wavered but did not crack.  “Would you like to join us?”  
  
He nodded without looking away from the Warden, a man whose face echoed his own, if only Cullen could get the tears to fall.  They were stuck somewhere between his heart and his eyes, burning deep into his skin as though they refused to be shed.  But the silence, the surprise, the statue of disbelief-- Cullen knew all these things.  He stepped to the side so that they could move and he could follow behind.    
  
Walking behind them as they exited the tower felt like falling, not into the memories he was so scared of, but into something more like a dream.  For a moment he could imagine what it might have felt like if he had left the tower when Leliana had asked.  She walked at his side, Chantry robes caught in the wind, and before them, two Grey Wardens, a slight elven woman with a sword at her hip and a staff in her hands, and broad shouldered man in heavy armor and a shield at his back.  
  
As they walked, there was a flash of light, and Cullen found himself walking in the square beyond the tower, a fire blazing before them.  Wood cracked, and a second beam fell away from a nearby building onto the fire; it flashed and crackled again.  Leliana gripped his arm as another piece of the building fell away.  A moment later, Cullen spun with Leliana in his hands, pulling her away as the whole building collapsed in on itself.  The fire sparked bright and loud while the group of them stared in wonder.  
  
“Thank you,” Leliana whispered when they started walking again.  Her hand slid down his arm, and though he couldn’t feel more than the barest suggestion it was there, he knew when she placed her fingers between his. Instinct squeezed the fingers of his glove gently with hers before letting go again.  The weight of her hand disappeared and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her arms cross over her chest, as she hugged herself tightly.  
  
A few minutes later, they were skirting down a long alleyway half covered in rubble, and when they exited a large house stood before them, for better or worse, untouched by the city’s fires.  
  
Leliana leaned over towards Cullen. “The house belongs to Arl Eamon Guerrin.”  
  
His eyes widened.  Even if he hadn’t known the name of the man he would have recognized the title of Arl.  Any Ferelden citizen would have; living the majority of his years in an isolated tower did not preclude knowledge of the outside world, just experience of it.  His surprise faded slightly as he saw Redcliffe soldiers in the courtyard.  He had seen red tower shields among the soldiers in the city, battling alongside the rest of them against the darkspawn.  It may not have been those men, but Redcliffe had been to the country’s aid.  
  
Alistair carried Neria into the house, guards opening the front doors at their approach.  Entering the house felt like a violation of sorts considering the destruction of the city they had had walked through.  The fighting might have died down, but the city was not quiet.  Cullen followed the others into the Arl’s house, but he knew that he could not stay.  Before long his absence would be noted and eventually, alive, he would be found by someone that would report his location to the Knight-Commander.  He chose then, to relieve himself of the Warden and Neria’s friends, too overwhelmed by the fact that though they shared a bond through her; he did not belong among them.  

***

  
The Warden, Alistair, was unchanged from his silent grief as he watched over Neria’s form and responded to little other that small directions from Leliana when prompted.  Leliana’s own grief was well-managed, but slithering unquiet under the surface of her small smiles and comforts among her friends. With little other than the word goodbye, Cullen took his leave.  
  
He found his way out of the estate and began the long way back towards the camp, carefully trying to reverse the steps they had taken to get to the house.  In such a short time the face of many of the buildings had changed for the worse, falling like the one they had seen into flames and rubble. He got turned around twice, peeking down alleys and finding that nothing looked familiar at all, smoldering ruins or not.  But, after another a few moments the main road was in his sights. From there he knew his way back to the camps outside the city.    
  
“Wait!”    
  
Cullen wheeled around, sword drawn, to find Leliana on the other side of an alley from him.  He lowered his sword and waited for her to join him, uncertain why she would have wanted him in the first place.  
  
She stopped before him, panting, and her hair clinging to at the edges of her face.  He said nothing as he waited for her to recover.  
  
“I--” she began and breathlessly let the word fade away.   Cullen was tempted to prompt her to speak again when she reached out for one of his hands and then stepped forward.  She leaned in until he could feel the warmth of her breath against his chin and then she whispered, _”She will know the peace of the Maker's benediction.”_  Though it was just a line, it was easy to recognize the Chant of Light when she spoke it.  Leliana’s blue eyes were bright and full of sorrow as they searched his face.  “It is true, yes?  Please.  Cullen... tell me,” she pleaded, “that she did the right thing.”  
  
The Archdemon was dead, but the pain in his chest meant Cullen could not bear the words that said he would not rather have the knowledge of a world where Neria still lived.  Instead he answered with the words that his lips knew without thought.   _“The Light lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next.”_  
  
Perhaps it was little consolation, or maybe it was just enough to keep her from asking more of him, but Leliana fell against his chest shaking with gasping breaths between fresh tears.  He knew little about what to do with a weeping woman against his chest other than to wrap his arms around her and hold her close.    
  
So he did.  
  
And finally, while she cried, so did he.    
  
For the first time since Neria had rescued him, he’d recited a part of the Chant without the fear of a demon at his heels.  It did not feel like an accomplishment, nor did any weight lift from him with the realization.  He only had room in his mind and his heart for sadness.    
  
Leliana’s hands gripped at his armor and for fear of hurting her, he tried to pry her away.  She clung to him and all he could do was hold her until her breaths softened and the tears dried against her cheeks.  When she quieted, she turned her face up to him, blue eyes sparkling with tears.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.    
  
He shook his head, his own tears just recently dry.  “It’s alright,” he said.  None of them needed to explain their sadness on a day when the rest of Ferelden could rejoice.  To them, the price of victory cut deep, and though he hadn’t been there in her last moments, he had seen the strength in her that morning.  He knew the woman they had lost.  
  
“Thank you.”  Leliana shifted in Cullen’s arms, waking gooseflesh on his arms as stiff joints awoke.    
  
“No, you don’t have to-”  
  
Leliana’s lips were on his before he could even give her enough room to move within his arms.  It became an embrace as she slipped her arms under his to circle his chest.  Shock rooted him in place; his eyes widened against a cascade of red hair.  And then he gave into it, and his arms tightened around the woman within them.  When he kissed her back she let out a soft moan against his lips.  
  
A moment later, she was slipping a hand back and reaching up to his jaw fingers wrapping around his neck and pulling him close.  She clung to him so tightly and at her touch, Cullen’s body stiffened and then slowly as her fingers threaded through the curls at the nape of neck, he relaxed again.  She opened her lips to a soft brush of his tongue against them.  He pulled her close and then as they kissed, they side-stepped towards the building behind him until she was pressing against him, his armor hitting the wall with a flat, metallic thud.  
  
He took a breath, quick but deep.  It felt for all the world like he could breathe her in, the smell of her skin, her hair and though the city around them was on fire, Leliana smelled sweet, like the tower’s garden on a summer’s day.  
  
She sank against him, until it was only the building behind him that kept the both of them standing, and slowly she pulled away, her kisses soft and short, and then gone.  She laid her head against his chest again.    
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Cullen pressed his lips together, still lost in phantom kisses his head turned down to hers.  He laid his chin on her head.  Into her hair he whispered, “Me too.”  
  
The surprise of her kisses was gone, but so was the heavy emptiness that had come before, exhaustion and the sharpest edges of sadness.  With Leliana in his arms, even if it was only brief, everything else seemed farther away, ephemeral and painless.  But this was not the place, or the time for such sweetness.    
  
“I should not even been here,” Leliana said after a long silence.  “I should be there, with her, with them.  But--”    
  
He nodded carefully against her.  That was something he understood. But it was her place, more than it was his, he understood that too.  Once, perhaps, he could have belonged with them, with her.  He had made his choice to stay; his anger had kept him back.    
  
Staying at the tower had allowed him to see the Rite done, the tower cleansed.  They would change it now, build it anew.  That was not to be his place, however, to watch the circle birthed again.  Instead he remembered Greagoir’s promise to him: if he returned with the templars, he would have a new home, new duties, a chance to return to the days when his waking thoughts were not crowded by visions of the past.    
  
Pulling away from Leliana, he canted his head to the side to catch her gaze and smiled at her for the first time.  It was small, but genuine.  “We mourn in our own ways.  The Maker knows our hearts, our sorrows,” he said borrowing from the chant.  “He takes our pain and we’ll build lives anew.”  
  
“A new life?” Leliana asked.  
  
Cullen nodded.  “I’m to be transferred after we return to the tower.”  He felt joy in that knowledge: a strange but welcome change from anger.   There was guilt, too, that he could find solace in the thought on the same day he had lost such a large piece of his heart.  Sorrow was there too, only less and shrinking.  Her sacrifice had saved a country.  That was more than worth their mourning; it was worth their joy, too.  
  
“To where?”  
  
“I don’t know yet.”  He moved, letting his hands drift down to rest around Leliana’s waist.  “Somewhere new.”  
  
She mused over the thought with a light hum and smiled, wrinkling the dried tracks of dirt and tears on her face.  “Somewhere new.”

***

  
  
They parted without a promise or plans for a future yet to come, but Cullen watched her pick her way back down the alley she appeared from, and he assumed she would return to the estate where the rest of her friends mourned the loss of the woman they loved.  Cullen returned to the templar’s camp where Greagoir stood watch over his men and women, and occasionally looked up to scan the horizon for stragglers returning from the battle.  
  
It was Greagoir that saw his approach, who led him to the healers to be examined.  He was fine, the worst of the blood belonging to the darkspawn they’d slaughtered and not his own.  When he was deemed to return to his tent, he went and for the first time since Uldred’s betrayal, he thanked the Maker for his life.    
  
The sky was long dark by the time he was able to shed his armor for the day.  He took the pieces slowly, finding battle aches in more than a few places.  Pains aside and armor aside, Cullen sat on his bedroll with a piece of bread and ate it slowly having little appetite for it.  He ate because he had not eaten all day, despite the offer of a meal at the Arl’s home, and in addition to routine it gave him some semblance of normalcy after everything that had transpired.  It did not, however, keep his mind from wandering, and remembering parts of his day.  He may have been cleaned up during his time at the healer’s tent, but they had not erased from him the feel of Leliana’s lips against his.  Nor could they take away the sight of Neria’s fallen body next to dragon she had slain.    
  
He was unmoving a long time reliving the memories as they came to him.  It was hard to think of Neria’s death as a thing that had only just happened.  He had been so long without her, and had spent so much energy hoping to forget her, or deny her.  The curious mix of events made it feel as though he was thinking of Neria’s passing as something that had happened long in the past, while also hurting like it was still happening: a constant repetition of dragon and Warden perishing one after the other.  
  
A rustle of wind whistled at the flap of his tent, shaking him from his thoughts.  He didn’t move but looked up drowsily from his bedroll.  The rest of his uneaten bread fell from his hand as he watched Leliana slip into his tent from a darkening sky.  She was a welcome sight, but a surprising one and Cullen’s eyes watched the shadows against the tent, waiting for a sign that someone else approached.    
  
He had not expected to see her again, not so soon, not ever.  There was no reason for their lives to intersect again, not with the Blight over and he on the way back to the tower and perhaps soon to be transferred to Maker knew where in Thedas.  His mind reeled and his heart thumped in his chest, waiting for the next surprise.  She grabbed his hand while he watched, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was focused on him.  His fingers felt warm in hers, and he held them as still as his breath until it seemed like the whole camp had gone quiet.  
  
When his fear had subsided, at least for a moment, his gaze swept back to her.  “How did you get here?”  
  
She patted his hand and then ran her fingers over the knuckles of his hand, her head turned down bashfully.  But he caught the smile that turned her lips up as she said, “Quietly, of course.”  
  
He huffed.  “Not what I meant.”  
  
The feel of her hand on his skin was intoxicating, that something so small, so simple, felt so good.  It was a welcome change to warm armor.  All his worrying and nervousness seemed to fade away as he stepped closer to her.  His hand slid up her arm and over her shoulder to brush her hair back.   _Maker,_ he wanted her.  This was not a simple thrill of an idea, of longing.  Her touch harkened back to the kiss in the city’s ruins, and there was something there more than mourning, more than wanting.  
  
She had been kind to him, comforting, when he had needed it the most.  Not just today, but months ago when no one else would come near.  She did not fear him or pity him.  Somehow he knew that she understood not only his pain, but the difficult choices he would have to make between what he believed, and his devotion to the Maker and his duties to his vocation.  He could not abandon them any more than he could tear his hand away from Leliana’s.    
  
Carefully she touched her lips to his and felt along his lower lip with his tongue.  Her touch on his jaw became firmer, and they both moved to lower themselves to the ground where his bedroll sat, cold but inviting.  She slid her thumb over his cheek and murmured his name against his lips.  He felt his name, the warm breath and movement of her lips and then responded with hers, lips parting for her, his own breath shallow and needy.  
  
She moved then to settle herself nearly in his lap, feeling his warmth along her body. That steadiness- that strength- it kept the darkness from sinking into him, and he smiled into her kiss.  She let her tongue slide along his as her arms went around him, keeping him close just as he wanted to keep her close.  
  
One of her hands found the bottom of his tunic and slipped beneath it, her fingers playing over bare skin. The chill of her fingers on his waist was a surprise but a pleasant one.  It was all new to him, but instinct took over, and he enjoyed the way her hands played on his skin.  He let out a small sigh at her touch, enjoying how easy it was to get lost in it.  
  
His arms dropped down to find her thighs.  His hands searched for the hem of her robes, gathering it up to slide his hands beneath the hem of her robe to find smooth, warm skin. Leliana leaned into him, letting a soft groan into his ear.  _“Cullen,”_ she breathed.  She pressed her lips to his earlobe leaving a light kiss in her wake, and her hands left his stomach and wrapped around his shoulders.  He felt her fingers playing in his hair and the press of her breast to his chest.  
  
She pressed her forehead to his, watching him.  He smiled as the tip of her nose brushed against his. In return she too smiled breathlessly, and inside he felt a coiling sensation in his stomach.  It was low and tight and felt more like pleasure than pain.  
  
Happily he lifted his hands further under her skirt, pushing it up over her hips, his hands settling on her waist.  He kissed her ear and her neck, and then thought of other things he wanted to kiss even more, places on her that he hadn’t yet seen.  His hands swept further under her robes, pushing the cloth up over her hips, finding the edge of her smalls with his thumbs.

  
This was all new to him, not just the kisses and the soft, welcome touches, but the idea of needing to remove clothes to get at the places his hands wanted so badly to touch.  Carefully, and with a light, tittering laugh, she pulled her hands from him and reached between them to help his shaking hands lift her robes up from her waist and then over her head.  When it was off, her back arched and she wrapped her hands behind her, as he watched her remove her breast band.  His breath caught, stunned to shallow breathing as she waited, looking at him with such sweetness and he hoped, longing, that his body responded by sending what felt like an unfair fire through him when he was still so clothed.  He could feel himself stiffen underneath her, and he leaned forward, to put his lips to her skin.  
  
Finally, he thought, he was able to lean forward and send a tentative kiss to her breast.  He let out a small breath, shallow and needy and he pressed into her, trying to lay them both down against the small bedroll beneath them.    
  
It did not feel as strange as he might have expected.  He felt the chill wind of evening sweeping through the tent and across the back of his neck.  And he liked the way he could see and then feel her nipples react to the wind as well.  He swirled his tongue around one and then kissed it before moving to do the same with the other.  
  
She let him press her down to the ground, hands tangling in his hair again, to hold him close. Her body seemed unbelievably sensitive, and she needy as nearly every touch of his lips and tongue made her whimper and shift beneath him.  At each soft sound she made he felt lightning down his spine and a warmth settling low in his belly.  
  
Leliana let her head fall back, her fingers in his hair massaged against his scalp. She looked down her body to him, and their eyes met as she parted her legs for him and he settled in between.  
  
 _Maker,_ he thought.    
  
" _Cullen_ ," she gasped, and the warm breath and the smile in her voice sent a shudder of excitement down his spine.  He pulled his head back from her enough to catch a glimpse of her, watching him.    
  
Her legs shifted and he had room to lower himself down, feeling the stretch of fabric over his legs and then he moved a little uncomfortably to raise himself up on his knees.  With a fluid motion he reached down, grabbed at his shirt and pulled it the rest of the way out of his pants and off over his head.  He tossed it, and it dropped to the ground near where her clothes had landed.  
  
Instead of leaning down again, he stayed there, on his knees and enjoyed being able to see her in what was little light came in from the camp and the few moments of twilight left outside.  He put his hands to her waist and then slid them to her breasts, cupping one in each hand and sending quick flicks of his thumbs over her nipples, pleased at the sensation and the noises it drew from her.  
  
His own need settled in, and he rocked his hips forward pressing the fabric of his pants to her skin and bracing himself so he could lean back down, pressing kisses against her neck.  His lips and tongue flicked their way down her neck, down between her breasts and after moving back just enough, down her stomach, finding her hips and leaving kisses on each thigh.  He looked up the length of her, for just a moment, ignoring the twitching, aching need between his own legs.  
  
His hands had trailed down her sides, after him, and when they too reached her hips, he gently ran each hand, light fingers down the inside curve of her hips, inside her thighs.  With each thumb, he traced the curve inside her legs as his hands curved over soft curls of hair that might as well have been red for all the shadows hid the color from him.  He smiled up the length of her, over the rise and fall of bare breasts.  
  
Flashes of memory imposed on his sight, shadows crept over the image of Leliana before him, leaving a darker one, a phantom --a demon-- come to torment him; it would offer him pleasure where once he had been so dutiful to refuse.  On a breath, Cullen felt his throat close around it, and he slipped away from Leliana, shaking his head to free the image from his mind.    
  
Of course it would come to him now, to remind him of what he had once wanted and what he had so quickly lost.  His eyes squeezed closed as he fought the image, trying to keep the image of Leliana in his mind.  And then he felt the weight of her hands on his.  He felt her move, and heard the rustling of his bedroll as she sat up just enough that she could slide her hands to his shoulders, and then his face.  Her hands stopped at his jaw, her thumbs resting in the hollows of his cheeks.    
  
“Come back to me,” she whispered.  “Cullen?  Please, open your eyes.”  
  
She was no demon sent to torment him, her touch was soft and welcome and … steadying.  He shook his head again, and the darkness and pain slid away, replaced by hunger by pleasing smiles.  She took his hands, cold and unarmored, in hers and laid back against the bedroll as he whispered, “I’m here.”  
  
He silently thanked her with the warmth in his eyes, and she smiled.  Warmth flooded through him at the brightness of even that small, inviting smile.  Until that moment he didn’t know how much he’d needed it, but the hiding emptiness in his chest woke, and filled with a feeling he could not name but he thought it felt a little like forgiveness.  
  
She stared up at him, tongue caught between her teeth as it pressed to her lower lip, stomach quivering from where he had trailed kisses and in answer to his teasing touches. When he had laid back, her hands settled over her chest, in the center, loosely clasped together.  
  
He reached for her again with no trace of nervousness, and then he let his hands follow the rest of the line inside her legs as he backed away from her.  His fingers moved to the laces of his pants as he rose back and then pushed himself up to stand.  After undoing the ties at his waist and a quick shimmy to push them down, both his pants and smalls were removed.  He leaned down, head over her again, and pressed his lips softly to hers.  She guided a hand down reaching for him as he lowered himself back between her legs.  
  
They fell into another kiss, leaning her head up just enough to nurse at his lower lip with force as she spread her legs still further, bent one to trail her foot along his calf. She moaned, and her hand guided him closer.  
  
He rocked his hips forward with little hesitation, and her hand slid away as he pushed inside her.  It was sharp, quick, and he pressed his mouth down against hers to muffle the groan in his throat, echoing in his chest with a flair of heat instead.    
  
It was brand new, all tingling and flames under the skin.  He could feel her hands, her foot, her lips, but all his attention centered between them, where everything was warm and tight.  Briefly, he broke the kiss between them, leaning his head back to look at her.  He readjusted, trying to let instinct guide him as he slid back.  
  
When he was ready, he bowed his head again, her name on his lips as he pressed them to hers.  When he pushed forward this time, it was easier, but still quick, hard, pushing as deep as he could go.  Being inside her felt like a safety, a tether to something like faith that he hadn’t known he needed.  Yet, when he let go, it was a little like he imagined drowning must feel like, and he grasped for her again and again and again, breathless.  
  
He had never been to Orlais, but when he closed his eyes and pressed his lips and tongue to hers, he would swear that he could taste it on her.  The curve of her mouth, the song in her voice and the gentle, chirping laughs that exited her when he told her this, were reward in themselves.  And if her mouth was Orlais, then her body was the Chantry where he read daily devotions and spoke his prayers between her thighs.  If it was blasphemous to think so, the sheen of sweat at the small of her back and the rose color in her cheeks reminded him why it was not.  
  
Even after she was gone, he could still taste Orlais on his lips, feel the sound of her songs in his fingertips, and hold his own vigils for the loss of her body next to his.  Ever at a loss for the proper words, he had merely thanked her as she left.  And their eyes met, she, with a smile, promised him that the Maker understood them and understood their need for the warmth.  
  
That, too, was forgiveness.  
  
In the morning, as the Knight-Commander prepared them to return to the tower as soon as they could break camp, Cullen wondered if it was wrong to want a person the way he wanted her.    
  
He didn’t like to find his feelings so easily swayed, but he felt the way he had once when he had been a fresh recruit assigned to the tower and a beautiful elven mage had stolen his heart away.  He’d held onto that feeling far too long, and in the end it had done them both more damage than harm. A simple kiss had been worth all but the end of it.  What he had wanted had been wrong --a mage and a templar-- more than wrong, it was forbidden.  His infatuation had certainly not been the first time a templar had pined after a mage or even the other way around.  Such things did happen.  Once, perhaps they each might have thought them capable of the same urges, the fight to be free of such rules.  Others before them, and indeed one of Neria’s friends, had fought the rules and tried to run.  
  
But not her.    
  
Not him.  
  
And then she was gone, and a single kiss that had haunted him had faded with her death.  A red-headed rogue had replaced his tears with heat, a lingering need even after she, too, had gone.  Not dead, just far- too far away for him to reach.  Still he wanted her, and he thought it was more than he had ever wanted anything and that --the wanting-- it felt like a weakness, like something forbidden, something to keep secret. 

***

  
It was three weeks home before Cullen was called into the Knight-Commander’s office.  He went with eager steps, hoping that this was the day his new assignment would come.  It was.  
  
“Cullen,” Greagoir greeted.  “Come in.”  
  
Cullen stepped inside the man’s office and stood with his armored hands clasped behind his back.  “Yes, Knight-Commander?”  
  
The older man waved at the chair in front of his desk.  “Have a seat, Cullen.  I have news.”  
  
He wound his way around the nearby chair and sat, uncomfortable and waiting.  Greagoir sat across the desk from him, unarmored hands lifting a parchment from his desk, and he nodded knowingly as he held it out for Cullen to read.  
  
Leaning forward, Cullen could see a dark red seal on the paper, broken and unfamiliar.  There was a dark, sprawling script across the page and, at the bottom, a name he did not recognize: _Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard_.    
  
He scanned the letter containing brief greetings from the other Knight-Commander, and recognition of a letter that Greagoir must have sent long before they had marched on Denerim to help defeat the Blight.  And then in the center of the page, a welcome message that he read twice to make sure that he understood it correctly.  
  
 _”I have need of courageous templars in Kirkwall. Our Gallows are strong and secure, and within them, our templars keep watch over a small but growing flock.  Your young templar, Cullen, sounds as though he has seen the tribulations and would understand properly the dangerous nature of mages that give over to their basest instincts.  I would welcome him to Kirkwall to serve me.  In fact, I even have need of a new Knight-Captain, if you believe him up for the job.”_  
  
Cullen looked up from the page quickly, forgetting the rest of the note, and stared at Greagoir with disbelief in his eyes.  A new Circle, a new Knight-Commander and --he looked back down at the page and read it again-- the chance to take it on as a Knight-Captain.  He’d never expected to become a Knight-Captain, nor anything more than a simple templar.  There was an empty space in his mind where the words should have formed in his excitement.  His mouth gaped as he handed the letter back to Greagoir.  
  
“Knight-Captain,” Greagoir said with an edge of amusement.  “I think you’ll serve them well.”  
  
With a deep breath, Cullen was able to say, “Y-yes.”  
  
“Surprised, lad?” Greagoir took the parchment back and found it a place amid all the other pages on his desk.  Cullen watched the paper move away, catching a glimpse of a fresh page under the Knight-Commander’s arms where it looked like a new letter was being written.  “I told you I’d find you a place.  I think Kirkwall might be just the place for you.”  
  
“T-thank you, K-knight-Commander.”  The shock slowly began to wear away with a few deep breaths.  Greagoir allowed him the silence to collect his thoughts, for which he was almost as grateful as the news he’d just received.  When his chest felt lighter, he swallowed down the rest of his bubbling shock and smiled at the older man across the desk.  “Knight-Commander Meredith seems generous.”  
  
At that Greagoir chuckled.  “I don’t know about generous, but I think she knows how to tell a good man.  I believe that your experience shows her that you are capable of making the difficult decision when it is called for.”  
  
Cullen nodded, unsure what to say in response.  His _< i>experience</i>_, as Greagoir put it, was the most harrowing thing he’d ever endured in his life and something he would wish on no one.  He didn’t believe that made him a qualifying candidate for a position like Knight-Captain, no matter what city or circle he moved to.  That a woman he had never met thought otherwise... he was suddenly uncertain of her offer.  
  
“And Kirkwall?”  he inquired.  “These Gallows she writes of?”  
  
“The Gallows is their circle.  If I remember correctly, it’s separated from the main city so it’s still isolated, but the mages are allowed outside, and there is more space; it may prove a pleasant change for you.”  
  
He listened intently, leaning forward in his chair while Greagoir spoke.  If he was completely honest, it could’ve been another tower just like Kinloch in another city, and he still would have wanted to go.  The city that surrounded it mattered little. What he’d seen of the outside world in their march to and from Denerim had been the most of the sun he’d seen at one time in years.  He remembered little of his life before the circle, or the chantry where he trained before that.  Any place where he didn’t have to see the phantom blood-stained walls was a welcome change.  
  
Nodding again, he asked, “When would I leave?”  
  
“As soon as you’re ready.  This week, if you like. We can have Carroll make arrangements at The Spoiled Princess to outfit with you with the things you’ll need for the trip.”  
  
“This week?”  
  
“If you like.”    
  
He didn’t need to think about it, at least not any more than he had already.  And other than the events of day Neria slew the Archdemon, and his night with Leliana, little else had occupied his mind.    
  
“I look forward to it,” he answered.  “Maker willing.”  
  
Duty was its own sort of anchor.  It was a way to call him back to the world, even when it took him somewhere unknown.  Greagoir had said the mages of Kirkwall were allowed outside, and Cullen felt the trade of his shadows for the sunlight might be the best kind of forgiveness.  Kirkwall, and Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard were a mystery to him, but the opportunity for a new beginning. 


End file.
